


La Sang de L'Agneau

by swaggybrooms (KingdomFlameVIII)



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Cannibalism, Character Death, Chesapeake Ripper, Dark Will, Hannibal is a weak bitch, I really feel like that should be implied at this point, Kissing, M is for murder, M/M, Murder Husbands, Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Sexually frustrated bed-sharing, Will hallucinates, Will's becoming, fluffy cannibals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-26
Updated: 2017-09-09
Packaged: 2018-12-19 23:03:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11908041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KingdomFlameVIII/pseuds/swaggybrooms
Summary: Are you ready for another dime-a-dozen "after the fall" fic, complete with on-the-run murder husbands, pretentious biblical references, incidental bed sharing, and unresolved romantic feelings finally coming to fruition? Look no further! Please enjoy this unoriginal s4e1 fic for all your s4e1 fic needs.





	1. Chapter 1

_“The great dragon was hurtled down--the ancient serpent called the devil--who leads the world astray. He was hurtled to earth, and his Angels with him.”_

_-_ Revelation 12:9

Falling had taken far longer than Will had expected it to. What should have been an instant became stretched-- _warped_ , into several impossible moments, dragged along a wide expanse of memories. And they were peaceful. Complacent, even.

They were marked with a keen sense of invigoration. A righteous power came in knowing that he would soon cleanse the world of the monster and his arms. Along with the one in his soul.

Will Graham had probably spent more time than most thinking about what it would be like to die. He had already felt it, in a way, a hundred times over, relying on his empathy to assume the unique sensations shared by all the victims he's seen, in the moments before their deaths.

His own death, on the other hand, he rarely gave any thought to, save for a listless, fleeting curiosity here and there. It was always laced with an indifferent, clinical detachment that he lacked the luxury of employing while observing a crime scene.

Will had already known the inevitable, exquisite fear that gripped everyone, in the moments before passing. He'd witnessed it firsthand, imagined it secondhand, and had felt it in his own body, on the occasion that he himself had been brought to the brink.

It was indescribable. Primal. Even victims of suicide often could not fight it once instinct took over.

 The irony.

 ~•~

Will awakes to sunlight, streaming unapologetically through a pair of open windows. His entire face and most of the pillow is illuminated by morning light. A would-be halo.

They had survived, then, if the bandage strapped annoyingly and itchy over his cheek were to be any indication.

The room is completely unfamiliar to him. The furniture, spotless and tidy as though it were brand new, is blonde wood and wicker, upholstered by striped, white and blue fabric. There are windows on all three sides of him, serving far more light than Will cared for at any time, let alone early in the morning.

Nautical decorations are tastefully displayed over various furnishings, as though the entire bedroom were picked fresh out of a home catalog. Aside from the 1000 thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets Will could feel plastered to his back, the room was so absent of Hannibal's influence that Will almost could have laughed. Almost.

His FBI training pricks irately in the back of his mind, alerting him, urging him to gather clues as to where he might be, to make a plan of escape.

Will tries to heave a sigh, but the action simply overexerts his heavy, exhausted lungs. It sends his tight chest into a fit of dry coughs. Like breathing through a damp washcloth.

Is there any point in struggling? Any use at all in orchestrating an escape, and leaving Hannibal behind him, for he must be here as surely as Will is.

His throat, already very sore, gros thick and heavy at the thought.

_No._

Will had already passed the last stop, hadn't he?

_Save yourself, kill them all._

That had been the plan. The words have eloquence, even if, deep down, Will had always understood they wouldn't quite fit the situation.

The time for saving Will Graham had come and gone. It was gone even before he'd chosen to leave Molly and Walter’s side. Before he'd followed Hannibal to Florence. Before he'd strung up the corpse of Mischa’s killer and left him to the snails and the starlight.

The time for saving Will Graham had gone the moment he picked up the phone, three years ago, the night they could have left together. The moment he'd made the split-second decision to warn Hannibal about Jack, just as Hannibal had done for Garrett Jacob Hobbs.

In the end, had Hannibal really been his final adversary?

Will allows the grief to wash over him, through him, and to pass steady as the stream.

He was always going to become this. No matter the path he took to avoid it. If not death, then here.

And death, for whatever reason, had chosen to take a pass on him.

The bubbly chitter-chatter of songbirds outside gives way to the sound of a heavy, trodding hoofstep. Behind the sanctuary of Will’s eyelids, the sunlight seems to recede. The gentle flapping of the curtains beside him drown out to the bugle of a stag. Or had it been an elk? Will can never tell the difference.

“The teacup _did_ come together.”

Will’s eyes snap open in an instant, though he takes care this time not to gasp.

Perched on the wicker chair across the room, delicate fingers tracing shell patterns over a throw pillow, is Abigail Hobbs.

She’s wearing fishing gear today. A tan vest--the very same that Will had worn as a teenager--is zipped high enough to tastefully cover the scar that would surely drag across her porcelain neck. The rubber galoshes she wears stick out comically where her knees are bent, giving her appearance a distinct air of youthful innocence.

“How do you know?” Will retorts. The words sound childish, even as he says them."

"If it _had_ come together,” he tries again, “then you would be here.”

“If I were here, then you wouldn't be ready,” she replies serenely.

 ~•~

Will hadn't been paying attention. Hadn't noticed Hannibal forcing their bodies upright.

He’d been too enthralled with the sky, set aglow where the clouds had become transparent enough to let the moonlight through.

Then they hit the water, and Will thought no more.

It's astounding, truly, to understand the lengths a human body will go to preserve itself. Will’s legs, quite of their own accord, begin kicking and thrashing furiously, while his arms maintain their vicelike grip upon the only thing that would matter when this is all over.

Will, master no longer of this function, recognizes only the pain. The crushing impact alone had set his nerves ablaze, starting in his toes and traveling in one zap of a motion to the top of his head.

The sea is icy as it is ruthless. Will is wholly encapsulated by furious, rushing waters, which toss him every which way. It invades him, knocks the wind out of him, pushes into his lungs. It is a miracle that they are not slammed into the jutting rocks along the cliff face.

Or is it a tragedy?

By the time their heads break the surface, Will had quite lost all sense of where he is, where he had fallen from, and how they could get to safety.

This is the part where, had Will still been the hero, he might have forced them back beneath the waves, allowed them to embrace like lovers and plunge into the depths below.

 Instead, he simply clings to Hannibal as they bob like corks, directionless for the moment.

Will’s body had already been vibrating before the fall, every nerve alive in the thrill of the hunt. Now, with hypothermia sparing no time in creeping into his skin, Will shakes so hard he might have been seizing.

Like some preternatural beast out of a fairy tale, Hannibal chooses a direction and begins to propel them both.

He had to have been weak. He had come out of the dance with the dragon worse than Will had, and on top of it there is still a bullet hole somewhere in his gut. And still he swam, as though the pain were lost on him.

And Will continues to hold him.

 ~•~

There had been a boat. A yacht, nestled alone in an alcove some immeasurable distance north of where Will had sent them into the water.

The entire affair has become somewhat blurred in the recesses of Will’s consciousness. There was the fall, a singular moment of absolute clarity, and then there was after the fall.

Chiyoh had been there, waiting on Hannibal's orders. Or… had she?

Hannibal had required immediate medical attention from Dolarhyde’s wounds, and yet, as Will tries to recall Chiyoh’s cold, delicate hands threading a needle through the lacerations on his shoulder, his mind calls forth only Hannibal.

Hannibal, gingerly tending to Will's face with warm warm concern written across his gently upturned brows. Hannibal, urging him to rest while Will insistently claws at the brink of consciousness.

Hannibal, easily stripping him of his waterlogged clothes and wrapping him in blankets, while the ghost of Bedelia du Maurier regards them impetuously over a glass of white wine.

"Who was the beast? And who could wage war against it?” she asks quietly.

It’s all so… messy.

 

Will sleeps for another day, waking each time more sure than the last that he would be somewhere else. Plastered against the rocky bluff, maybe, or else a hospital, chained to his bed and getting his ear chewed by an unburned Dr. Chilton.

Yet each time, he awakes in his tacky white bedroom, soft cotton on his skin and the scent of the sea filling his nose.

In what he decides is late in the afternoon, on the third day, Will decides with finality that he's not dreaming, or hallucinating. The reality of his fate could be avoided no longer.

He had sent them into the beast, raged a battle with his darkest of demons, and still he emerged, reborn.

 Victory tastes like ash and rot in his mouth.


	2. Chapter 2

Hannibal is waiting for him, in the kitchen of course.

The room, much like the one Will had slept in, has many windows, including a wide glass door on the west side. It reveals a worn, wooden path that leads through a thicket of reeds out to a dock. Will is unsure as to whether they're on a lake or a bay.

“Good morning Will,” Hannibal greets, remaining quite still at the counter. Like a fish, gracefully poised against the currents. “Or, should I say good afternoon?”

Somewhere in the deepest cavity of Will’s chest, a subhuman, lovecraftian beast rises at the sight of him, bellowing and purring all at once.

Hannibal's hair is all silver and gold in the sunlight, hanging loose over his forehead. His face is clean-shaven and healthy, and not at all like he'd been shot mere days ago. A thin, grey dressing gown covers silk pajamas, underneath which Will knew would be a flower bed of bruising and tears, fixed up neatly in a white bandage.

Alive. Very much alive.

“Bluebeard’s wife indeed.”

Once again, Will sees past Hannibal into the passive gaze of Bedelia, posed in every bit of the victorian elegance she had carried during their sessions. 

Unlike Hannibal, who had camouflaged himself perfectly to match the homey kitchen, Bedelia looked heavily out of place. Her perfect, white blonde curls frame a necklace of pearls, which sits low on her bosom over a dress of black and gold.

Incensed by her presence, Will makes a very abrupt decision to follow and participate, should Hannibal choose to pursue and eat her.

Hannibal, tracking Will’s gaze, glances briefly over his shoulder. Will can sense the heaviness of the silence, like an offending scent hanging in the air between them.

“You slept for four days,” Hannibal offers, once again attempting to incite a conversation between them. 

It was… irritating for Will. He hasn't quite decided where to set the pieces in their newly levelled playing board. Or if there would even be another game.

“Where are we?” he allows himself to ask, finally.

Hannibal rises, walking leisurely around the counter, his frame concealing Bedelia’s figuring to face Will more completely.

“We,” he begins, “are just outside the lovely city of Mystic. What you see outside is Long Island Sound.”

“Mystic… as in pizza?”

“As in pizza.”

“Connecticut?”

Will had been expecting Nova Scotia, or Trinidad, maybe. Hell,  _ Norway  _ seemed more likely. But here they are, on the very same coast. Cozy fugitives nestled right in the continental U.S.

“Not what you were expecting,” Hannibal observes, easily reading the confusion on Will’s face. It is not a question.

“I didn't think we’d be staying in the country,” Will confesses, “Much less Jack Crawford’s back yard.”

“And you would be correct,” Hannibal says shortly.

He paces over to the back door as he speaks, beckoning for Will to follow. To stand beside him.

“However, you were too weak to travel and I’m afraid I lack the skill to sail even in the best of conditions.”

Will raises his eyebrows.

“ _ You  _ were shot.”

Hannibal ignores him. “Fortunately, that very same night, the Wentworth family received a very distressing phone call, and had to cancel their vacation early. The landlord, one Mr. Liptek, was very obliging and offered the full three week refund. Leaving this place,” he gestures around, “open for our use.”

“Mr. Liptek won't mind?” Will asks.

“Of course not. Mr. Liptek is me.”

He wants to ask what happened to the Wentworth family, if anything had happened to them. He decides he’d rather not know.

“You think it's safe to stay here that long?”

“Chiyoh has been providing us with groceries.” Hannibal turns, looking Will in the eyes once again. “Unless you can think a reason it would be unsafe for us?”

There it is. A question, barely there, of Will’s true loyalties. Would Jack, with all of his horses and all of his men, arrive at any minute to take them back into custody? Would their momentary sanctuary shatter with the glass door, a bullet from an unseen shooter lodging into Hannibal’s skull? The mistrust, misguided but there nonetheless, separates them a moment like a gossamer veil of mist.

“I thought we were past this,” Will sighs.

He realizes now that he's never said it out loud, always assumed that by this time, Hannibal would understand him completely. The moment Will had laid the trap for Dolarhyde, he'd laid one for himself and Hannibal as well. Dead or alive, Will had ceased to be one solitary unit.

Try as he had for so long to shut away the beast Hannibal had awoken within him, Will understood now that he had never been alive before Hannibal. He could not live in a world with Hannibal free. And yet he could not live without him, either.

“You’ve tried to have me killed. Many times,” Hannibal reasons. 

He sounds so  _ smug.  _ The bastard.

Will leans forward, intentionally breathing hot, heavy air, inches from Hannibal's ear. His hands come up, fixing tenderly over broad shoulders.

“When you die, it will be by  _ my  _ hand, and my hand alone,” he purrs.

With this, he steps back, fixing Hannibal with a look that throws back all the smugness from whence it came. Hannibal's expression is unchanged and utterly lost on Will.

Without another word, Will’s hand finds the doorknob, and he steps outside and sets off toward the dock, leaving Hannibal alone to stare after him.

Quietly, Hannibal is coming apart at the seams.

“My darling boy,” he says to nothing in particular. “How I never could predict you.”

~•~

In the week following their first morning together, the air between them becomes surprisingly comfortable. Neither of them mention that night on the cliff again, and for this Will is grateful.

Breakfast is always shared between them at the counter, usually in silence, as Hannibal liked to use this time to read the newspaper, while Will was often too groggy before his first coffee to hold a conversation anyway.

They spend much of their days apart. Will (wearing a hat and goggles to cover his face) spends most of his recovery exploring the sound on their yacht, seeking out the best places to fish. It's a far cry from his preferred territory, but Will is an excellent fisherman nonetheless.

Hannibal, preferring intellectual stimulation, keeps primarily to his books and his drawings. In the evening, he’s far too delighted to prepare Will’s catch of the day.

Will, to start out, is always very careful to provide the meat. If Hannibal catches on to this pattern, he does not say so.

They share their evenings together in the living room, which, with the fireplace lit and the curtains drawn, is the only room in the house in which Hannibal Lecter truly looks at home.

Into the quiet hours of the night they share conversations, not about Will’s head space in particular, but about life, and all the quirks and peculiarities they find it holds. Philosophy too, sometimes, as cannot be avoided when Hannibal is one’s only companion. 

They discuss their interests also: Hannibal tells Will about his favorite operas; can recount through memory the tales of Milton, or a street performer he’d met along the Seine. Will teaches Hannibal how to tie a finishing knot, describes some of his favorite dog breeds, reminisces early childhood.

After a 5 year courtship, they finally begin to bond like ordinary men.

On the ninth day, Hannibal deviates slightly from routine. 

“We need to make a short side trip before we depart permanently,” he says delicately.

Will, who had been relaxing lazily by the fire, sets down his glass of whiskey and turns his attention completely to Hannibal. Not questioning. Just waiting for elaboration.

“Or rather,  _ I  _ do,” Hannibal amends.

“I’m coming,” says Will instantly. The words shock him a little bit. After everything that had transpired between them, he should be more than delighted to find himself alone for a few hours. The thought abhors him now, fills him with anxiety. As though Hannibal might vanish into smoke the moment he strays from Will’s sight.

Hannibal’s lips quirk in the slightest, his eyes narrowing into a subtle smile.

“As you wish,” he acquiesces.

Will nods, holding eye contact.

“You remember Bedelia Du Maurier? My former psychiatrist?”

A quiet rage immediately bubbles and froths beneath Will’s skin at the mention of her name.  _ Bedelia… how could I forget? I can’t get her out of my head. _

“I attended the seminar she toured with after Florence,” he replies casually,the sublest sort of jerk in his speech betraying his irritation. “Since then we’ve had… sessions.”

Will wonders vaguely if he can make Hannibal resent Bedelia, to…  _ envy  _ her in the agency she’s had over Will’s headspace. Would he be jealous, just a little bit? As Will had been when he’d found her where Hannibal should have been in Florence, a needle practically protruding from her arm?

Will thinks he would not have been so sloppy.

But if Hannibal had been annoyed with the admission, he makes no sign of it.

“Oh?” he replies, “Did her find her therapy illuminating?”

_ Not like yours,  _ Will thinks stupidly.

“More or less,” Will says, with a non-committal, wiggling gesture of the hand. “I think I learned a bit more about  _ her _ than I did about myself.”

“Yes, that’s why I liked her. Bedelia never could remain impartial. As a patient, one has to accept they must surrender a certain degree of control to their psychiatrist. In this instance, my psychiatrist relinquished a bit of herself to me, as well.”

“Right up until she didn’t,” Will points out. “Are you going to kill her?”

“Yes.” 

Hannibal, for the first time, had not hesitated. He had not given half an explanation with an omission of the truth, nor a loosely veiled euphemism for his intentions. A yes, just like that.

He stares at Will, unwavering, until it is Will that’s forced to look away.

“Is it a problem?” Hannibal asks.

The question is not a threat. It’s genuine, though he need not have asked it.

The idea of killing Bedelia--Will is horrified, though not altogether surprised to realize-- _ thrills  _ him. He feels the leviathan within him rear its ugly head and roar triumphantly at the idea of gripping her ivory throat, of seeing his own face reflected in her terrified eyes as they roll to the back of her head. 

He remembers the shattering exhilaration of striking the dragon dead, and further still he thought of Randall Tier. So animal, so… malleable. 

These thoughts seem to fill him, and as they do, the horror and fear he’s come to know ebb slowly away. Like an ill-fitting helmet he is finally able to take off and cast aside.

“What did you think, just now?” Hannibal asks. Will can not dare look back at him just yet, not when he was sure his face would betray everything.

“Trying to be my psychiatrist again, Doctor Lecter?” Will deflects. He can hear the clack of Bedelia’s stilettos echoing from the doorway.

“I’m not asking for your sake, Will. I am asking because I’m curious,” Hannibal says. “Tell me anyway.”

Even as the words form in his mind, Will thinks again about taking her life. Not for his own pleasure, but to deny Hannibal his own. Will wants to take her life away from him, deprive him of the satisfaction. 

“Just now,” Will says, satisfied to hear himself sounding far less elated than he felt, “I thought about killing her myself.”

At last he allows himself to peer just over the rim of his glasses, to look Hannibal in the eyes and in them he sees fire.

Perhaps he should just kill them both now and be done with it.

~•~

Will does not stop seeing Bedelia, in the days leading up to their planned day of departure. He does, however, derive a certain pleasure, in knowing what it is he’s planning to do.

He wonders how his attitude will change once the time comes. Although the murder of Randall Tier had, to a point, been premeditated, Will had been put in a position of life or death, at the time of the killing. It had been the same with Dolarhyde. 

This was not so. This was not self defense, not a mercy or a justice.

This is  _ his  _ design.

“She may not be at home,” he informs Hannibal, as they speed in their stolen car down I-84. “I… I warned her, before all this.”

“She’ll be waiting,” Hannibal replies shortly.

He sounds certain. 

Will allows the curiosity to beat at him for awhile. He almost lets himself become lost in the gentle passing of streetlamps overhead, or the occasional rush of light from an oncoming car. Then these things become grating, irritating, and he can stand it no longer.

“Why not run?” he questions, “She was terrified.”

“Bedelia knows she cannot escape me,” Hannibal explains, “I believe she realized in Florence, after I, ‘removed my person-suit,’ as she would say.”

“Wouldn’t most people run anyway? Just to… prolong the inevitable?”

“Quite so, but Bedelia is not most people. Bedelia is a person of action, though she will rarely admit it. She prefers to employ passive participation, but participation nonetheless. She would rather fight me than escape me, I think, and she would have the environmental advantage in the comfort of her own home. I will be sad to see her potential wasted.”

Will is at once renewed with newfound loathing. 

“I asked her if you were in love with me,” he blurts without thinking.

“Did you?” Hannibal sounds amused, damn him, he doesn’t even look away from the road.

_ He’s hiding,  _ Will realizes triumphantly.

“And what did she say?”

Will considers telling him for a moment. But, truth be told, he’s just a little bit thrilled to have the upper hand for once. To spin a little game between his fingers, to play, not for keeps, but for  _ fun. _

So Will remains silent, fixes Hannibal with a  _ look,  _ one Hannibal will not see until he gives up his play at disinterest to look away from the road. To face Will directly.

“I see,” he sighs in long-suffering tones.

  
  
  



	3. Chapter 3

As Hannibal had predicted, Bedelia was waiting for them, well lit through the transparent walls of her front room. They creep, lights cut, in their stolen car up her driveway. 

She looks just as Will always sees her: hair curled perfectly even at this hour, in a dressing gown of some glossy, silvery material. She has a glass of white wine in one hand and a book in the other. She sits, quite at ease, facing the window.

For a moment, Will is unsure if what he’s looking at was real, has to glance aside to see if Hannibal is seeing the same thing.

But his fears are assuaged immediately. Hannibal’s eyes are fixed on her, his face utterly still, independent from the rest of his body. She’s real, all right. He was  _ stalking  _ her.

It occurs to Will that he has never seen Hannibal hunt in person before. He had seen him kill, of course, seen the ruthlessness of which Hannibal was capable. He’d seen him enjoy it, relish in it, even. He’d pieced the crimes together in his own head, but those were just snapshots, fragmented pieces of the entire being.

Here and now, this was Hannibal but it was also the Chesapeake Ripper. The… monster, the man. The artist, the philosopher, everything that Will had loathed in the world for half a decade, conglomerate into this… complex, exquisite creature that he had no choice but to love.

For one moment of disquiet, Will’s heart throbs for all that he has lost, all that Hannibal has taken from him. This… love, this, whatever it was, had come at a steep price; everything he’d held dear.

As Will had done before, he allows this grief a fleeting audience, and then he lets it pass him by. This was, after all, both a punishment and pardon. A monster for a monster.

 

Bedelia does not alert any of the appropriate authorities when she hears the speculated befallen fate of Hannibal and Will. 

The bureau insists the forensics team has unearthed evidence of a jump. Tattlecrime, however, seemed to be teetering between the appeal of a lovers’ suicide vs. the sensation of a pair of killers leaving a staged trail of blood for a bereaved (and possibly unhinged) Jack Crawford to eat up.

Bedelia has a far more practical grasp of the situation. She has known Will Graham for all his indecisiveness, his--in her mind--misguided complexes of self-righteousness. If they had died, she thinks, they most certainly must have done so together. Will Graham would not have approached the maw of hell without pulling the devil down with him.

And the devil would not have broken by a hand other than Will’s.

But, just as she knows of Will, deeper still she knows of Hannibal. Where Will might have been a house cat Hannibal was a lion--fully predatory, mind taught and unwavering like a bowstring. He would not allow Will to perish. Not unless he had done it himself.

And throwing him over a cliff is  _ not  _ the way Hannibal would have done it himself.

No, the mutual obsession with one another was enough to fully siphon away any doubts that Bedelia had for the situation. The were absolutely alive.

And under the influence of Dr. Lecter, the boy who could not crush a baby bird would swiftly phase into a bully on an anthill with a magnifying glass. Such was the fate of anybody unfortunate enough to suffer long periods of time in the company of Hannibal Lecter.

Bedelia did not pack her bags, as she was advised. Though she didn’t realistically believe in her own capability in preventing her death, less still could she entrust her life into the hands of anybody else. They didn’t know Hannibal like she did. To try and take such action seemed… foolish.

So she waited.

 

Bedelia does not hear the intruders enter her home. Does not hear them creep up through the basement steps and permeate the house like a disease. 

What she hears is only a quiet “Good evening, Bedelia,” whispered soft and impersonal, as if, perhaps, to an estranged lover.

The quiet of the evening is disrupted in an instant, the shatter of a mirror. Bedelia is moving, leaping with grace over the sofa and out of the room.

“Please calm down,” Hannibal says, in an impish sort of tone that suggests she should not be calming down for any reason. She chances a glance over her shoulder.

He’s clean, in a pressed, three-piece suit of grey and gold. The only indication of his intentions are a pair of soft shoe-coverings, silencing the easy footsteps he takes towards her. His hands are gently folded at the front.

Though she doesn’t see him, Will is waiting for her in the hallway.

_ It’s too easy,  _ he thinks, easier than he’d ever expected it to be. He holds his position quietly in the dark, waits patiently to step into the open. He waits until she has thrown open the cabinet doors opposite him, desperately seeking the small revolver that Will had removed moments ago.

She spins around and runs straight into Will’s chest.

“You!” she cries, eyes wide and horrified.

_ I have you now,  _ he thinks, and he presses the chloroform soaked cloth in his hand into her gently parted lips.

“We thought you might like to join us for dinner.”

~•~

It was Will that suggests they take the leg, but Hannibal had been the one to do it. Though he’d been offered the tools and instruction many times in the hour it had taken for the full procedure, Will opted out of any task that required cutting.

He was, in truth, entirely too absorbed in watching Hannibal work, in watching all the pieces of him come together to make a murderer. Hannibal had learned to take apart the body far before he’d learned to take apart the mind. He was quick with his fingers, nimble, and they never shook. 

Will was all too used to delicate tasks, he’d been making his own lures his whole life. But what Hannibal had made short work of would likely have taken Will all day, even with the proper instruction.

They’d decided to let Bedelia sleep off the anesthetic and let the leg slow-roast. Hannibal had been a marvel in the kitchen, as always. The preparation for the meat alone took far more time than its amputation.

Bedelia had one guest bedroom, which left the short issue at four in the morning as to who would take the bed.

“We’ll share,” Hannibal declares easily, and headed into the bathroom to shower as though that should settle the matter. “Don’t wait up for me,” he adds as an afterthought, “The water pressure is simply divine.”

Will presses the heels of his palms into his eyes as the door closes in front of him.

He’d had an inkling, a long time ago, that something like this might happen. They had not yet discussed the events that had transpired over the bluffs of the Atlantic. That included the touches and the words they had shared.

Yet here they are, and Hannibal’s words had sounded as much like an invitation as anything.

Will turns around and marches right back into the bedroom, determined to be sound asleep by the time Hannibal emerges.

He had not been blind to the soft sensuality that Hannibal presented during their time together. Nor had he been immune to it. He’d flirted back, met Hannibal’s soft eyes with a smirk of his own. The seduction that he’d attempted to orchestrate before Europe had been just that: a seduction. It had only worked so flawlessly because Hannibal had been enraptured far before that.

Will felt a little bit stupid now for asking Bedelia. Of  _ course  _ Hannibal was in love with him.

He’s still wide awake when he hears Hannibal pad softly into the bedroom. But, as the lights are off and Will tucked under the covers already, he decides that the simplest course of action is just to feign sleep and pretend that he can’t feel the electricity crackling between them. His issues could wait until morning.

It occurs to him that what he’s feeling is most likely as simple as a case of nerves. The notion that Hannibal could induce something so normal seems absurd to him. 

Will Graham is too keyed up to sleep next to the man whose mouth destroys--whose mouth convinced Mason Verger to kill Will’s child, convinced Francis Dolarhyde to attempt the same. The same mouth that tore out Dolarhyde’s throat, that drives people to insanity, to violence. The mouth that eats the flesh of the people it considers rude.

And yet, Will Graham is too keyed up to sleep next to that mouth because he thinks he’d like to kiss it.

Unable to square with that notion just yet, Will thinks about killing him instead. He thinks about taking the pillow out from underneath his head and smothering him with it--no, that wouldn’t do at all--thinks about climbing over his waist and beating him to death. Yes, better. 

He calls to mind the color Hannibal’s hair turns when it becomes soaked through with blood, hanging loose and messy over his forehead. Will pictures him, clothes torn, body lithe and able and fighting for its life.

Will is irritated but hard surprised to realize that there’s heat pooling in his groin. Frustrated, he turns over under the sheets and thinks about ice fishing until he falls asleep.

~•~

When Bedelia wakes, she knows very little save for the pain in her leg. She’s agonized, down to the very bone.

She remembers where she is, and the adrenaline clears the fog, just a little bit.

No sooner than she opens her eyes do two faces come swimming into view. She looks between their faces and sees thinly veiled triumph under a maddening mask of comfortable politeness.

“Would you like some morphine, Bedelia?”

She’s not sure which of them says it. It doesn’t even matter, at this point.

“Yes please,” she whispers.

 

“Where will you go now?” Bedelia asks politely.

Dinner is flawless. The leg obviously being the centerpiece of the table, gleaming with a thin coat of hickory smoke sauce, garnished with banana leaves, berries, and thinly sliced pineapple. For wine Hannibal serves a sparkling ros é, to offset the sweetness and, for Bedelia only, a plate of oysters. 

Will can sense from her body language that the oysters bear some kind of significance, although he doesn’t know how he feels about Hannibal serving her aphrodisiacs in front of him.

Hannibal takes a plate to the end of the leg and begins shredding generous amounts onto it with a fork and knife. Steam rises generously from the meat with every swipe of the fork. It’s so tender he seems only to use the fork as a guiding tool, while the leg shreds itself apart.

Right. Because this wasn’t all just for show. Hannibal prepared to impress but he also prepared to serve. To  _ consume.  _ They would be eating her.

“I rather liked the idea of going to Rome,” Hannibal replies pleasantly, “But then, I did always have a preference for Italy.”

Bedelia delicately scoops an oyster into her mouth. Her actions are slowed and exaggerated from the opiates. A thin vein of fluid runs from the corner of her mouth, but she is not so doped up as to forego dabbing politely at her face before speaking again.

“Does Will speak Italian?”

“No,” Will replies, incensed by the way she spoke of him in the third person. But Bedelia glances at him with a hint of surprise when he speaks, as though she had only just noticed his presence in the room.

“I speak Cajun,” he confesses before either of them can reply.

“Perhaps France, then,” Hannibal replies, smiling.

He cuts pieces first for Will and Bedelia. Bedelia visibly shrinks away from hers as though it were poison. Her fear, for whatever reason, invokes the necessary resolve in Will to approach his own serving.

Even before Randall Tier, Will was certain that Hannibal must have fed him somebody before. And, truth be told, Hannibal has never served a bad meal. The whole cannibalism thing lacked the certain appeal in Will that it carried for Hannibal, but if this was to be a relationship, then this, he supposed, is what one might consider a compromise.

He and Hannibal begin to eat at the same time. The meat is salty and sweet all at once, savory, but lacking in the bits where the marinade failed to soak all the way through. Will takes care to thoroughly coat the next bite in sauce before bringing it to his lips.

“Yes, I thought so too,” Hannibal remarks in agreement. “You haven’t been eating well, Bedelia,” he chides.

Where her expression may have been subtle normally, under the influence of the morphine it’s absolutely clear that this was her intention. “Yes, I’m afraid I’ve found sticking to a regular diet to be rather troublesome as of late.”

“Now, what’s to be done about that?” Hannibal replies, eyes narrowing.

Bedelia chooses to take a sip of wine, rather than reply.

“You haven’t touched your entree,” Will points out.

He enjoys watching the little reactions, the physical indications of fear her body makes in response to the words. A slight jump of the vein. A small, mousy intake of breath. He can almost feel the jolts of anxiety spreading from her heart to the tips of her toes. His own heartbeat speeds to match the pace of hers.

Will looks into her eyes and sees the comprehension of her fate, the understanding that her time is numbered, and the clock is running short. It’s electrifying.

Her lips part slightly, she glances wordlessly back and forth between them.

“I...I don’t wish to be rude--” she begins breathlessly.

“And yet so often accidental rudeness occurs even in the best of us,” Hannibal says in a gleeful tone of mock ruefulness. “Will is quite right you know. You are the guest of honor, after all, and it is best enjoyed hot. The fat will begin to solidify as it cools.”

Bedelia’s hands tremble as she picks up the fork. “Yes, of course.”

Hannibal, satisfied for the moment, turns to Will.

“Do you know Will? I think France would be lovely,” he chirps happily, “As it happens I bought a small amount of land many years ago from a man just outside Mont Saint-Michel. He spoke little English and asked few questions.”

Will raises his eyebrows, “Thought you’d be more of a Paris guy.”

Hannibal mirrors his expression right back at him, with notes of distaste as though Will had just offered him a microwave dinner, or a chair from Ikea. 

“Paris has its charms, but it is unsuitable to live in. It’s dirty, and the locals are very rude.”

“And Baltimore is better?” Will laughs.

“If you would prefer Paris--”

“No, no. Just surprised,” Will amends. “Mont Saint-Michel sounds fine. How is it?” he adds to Bedelia, who has managed at last to take a small bite.

She briefly presses two fingers to her lips, eyes watering. Will wonders for a moment whether she is going to vomit.

“Tastes like veal,” she decides.

“Yes, I’m afraid it will get tougher as it gets to the calf area, but unfortunately I could not take the upper without also taking the lower,” Hannibal laments.

Bedelia glances to Will like she cannot believe her ears.

“Perhaps a stew,” Will suggests, not taking his eyes off her. He’s having  _ fun,  _ watching her squirm and worry and suffer. 

Defiantly, she takes another bite.

Bedelia had spoken to Will of his becoming before. She’d relished the same sort of curiosity for it as Hannibal had when  _ he’d  _ treated Will. But she’d lacked the caution with Will that she’d carried around Hannibal. She didn’t realize that he too had been wearing a person-suit.

Perhaps this was because even Will himself had not known he was wearing one.

She never believed he was going to come for her. Hannibal, certainly. She had seen Hannibal kill, seen his element, his passions, seen his patterns and formulas at work. She had grown familiar with his style, pieced it all together like clockwork. In this manner he became predictable. It suited her to know the manner in which he would likely hunt her.

It terrifies her now to realize she doesn’t know what to expect at all.

Because when Will meets her eyes, it becomes abundantly clear that Hannibal is no longer the one pulling the strings.

 

“ _ Sanguinaccio Dolce,”  _ Hannibal announced, carrying a large tray into the dining room. Larger, Bedelia would say, than is perhaps intended to share between three.

“Well, Dr. Chilton will be chuffed to know you liked the title of his book,” Bedelia observes, warily regarding the delicacy with the same air of anxiety and distaste as she had given the leg.

“Yes, I thought it appropriate,” Hannibal replied, flashing her a knowing smirk, “Blood has crossed barriers of countless cultures as the very force of life. It was thought to carry the essence of the soul, the very links to life itself. And this is, of course, a celebration of life.”

_ Our celebration,  _ Will thinks, overcome with a giddy sort of haze.

“Shall I clear the plates?” he offers, standing up before Hannibal can object.

But Hannibal does not object. He only smiles warmly.

“Thank you, Will.”

Will makes his way around the table, wondering idly if what they were doing is meant to be a consummation feast.

He doesn’t see Bedelia take the oyster fork, or even reach up at all. Neither he nor Hannibal knows how long she’s had it. But as Will approaches her to collect her (mostly full) plate, Bedelia attacks.

She stands up swiftly, using her left hand to supplement the balance normally provided by her leg, and with her right hand drives the three-pronged fork with all her might into the soft muscle between Will’s neck and shoulder.

The pain brings Will staggering to his knees, but it’s clear that whatever Bedelia had meant to do, it wasn’t that. He looks back up and he sees her fear in her blown out pupils, in the way the blood has drained from her face, leaving her lips pale and colorless. As though she were already dead.

She makes a split second decision, but Will is ready for it. Her right hand shoots out, ready to grab, scratch,  _ anything.  _ Will catches her by the wrist. 

Perhaps it’s the panic that makes her forget, or maybe the drugs. She raises her left hand to try to contest, and, unprepared for the sudden shift in gravity, goes right down.

Will had forgotten himself. Forgotten the plan, forgotten this place. Forgotten everything but the  _ chase. Easy, too easy. _

He follows her down, avoiding her kicks and her scratches, though she does manage to tear the bandage off his face. One arm, two arms out of the way. He forces her against his chest, turning her so easily on the side from which they’d taken her leg.

Will hoists himself onto his knees, dragging her with him, his forearm locked against her throat.

It’s then that he notices Hannibal is watching him.

He looks calm, impassive even. But he is poised, task forgotten, ready to jump in at a second’s notice should the scuffle fall out of Will’s favor. The knife he’d used to serve Bedelia’s leg is clutched ready in his fist, and suddenly Will wants it.

_ Quickly, quickly!  _ He urges with his eyes, but Hannibal held fast. Growling, Will reaches instead for his own knife, kept in his back pocket.

“Will, no!”

It’s already too late; he’s brought the knife up already, drawn it swiftly across the left side of her throat. He doesn’t draw it out, not like Hannibal. Will had no interest in savoring the action, or making performance art. He is ruthless and efficient all at once. He wants to see her  _ bleed.  _

He continues to hold her, at first, knife clattering to the floor. Her blood gushes warm and red, dark but not so black by the fire as it had been by the moon. It runs over his hands, stains blossom into the white shirt Hannibal had gifted him for the occasion. He releases the body when he realizes that blood is spraying into his face as well.

Will stares, mesmerized, body shaking and mind not altogether functioning.

Bedelia is gurgling, eyes looking so impossibly blue against the redness of her tears. She stares wide and disbelieving at nothing in particular.

The blue of her dress gives way to red at the sleeves, though the blood gently follows the curves of her body like a stream, welling up in a small space at the center of her chest.

Will looks up. He wants to see Hannibal, wants to see him see Will’s design.

But Hannibal is not where he was moments ago, and when lifts his head he looks, very much closer than anticipated, directly into the dead, unseeing eyes of Garrett Jacob Hobbs.

_ See? _

Abigail Hobbs, lifeless, still bleeding at dying at his knees.

Will may have been crying, and perhaps speaking too. Or he may have just been shaking. He doesn’t know. He’s seeing too many things, hearing too many noises. Echoes of words spoken by him, by others, words he’s never heard before.

Some emotion right between the highest of triumphs and the deepest pain of an unexpected loss is punching its way through his chest. He can’t see anymore. It’s too warm. He’s shivering.

Hands are cupping his face. He’s being pulled unceremoniously to his feet.

_ Will… Will… Will… _

_ “ _ Will!”

Just like that, there’s Hannibal.

Will is still shaking, with fear and rage, and loss and sorrow and  _ joy,  _ that disturbing  _ joy,  _ and he wants to die all over again.

But he doesn’t. Instead, he sinks into Hannibal’s arms, which are already half around him. With no cliff to throw them over this time, he has no choice but to fold. He wonders for a moment if he  _ could  _ be in hell after all.

  
  
  



End file.
